{"title":"Animal Welfare and the Democratic Frontier: Mark Twain’s Condemnation of Bullfighting in A Horse’s Tale","authors":"Charles C. Bradshaw","doi":"10.5325/marktwaij.17.1.0140","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:The animals in A Horse’s Tail populate a singular form of sentimental narrative that ties together animal welfare and the American frontier as a larger story of American national identity. Shelley Fisher Fishkin has called attention to Twain’s fascination with animal and human emotions and Twain’s associated reversal of human intelligence and animal ignorance in his writing. A Horse’s Tale follows this dynamic by offering its horse narrator as a pragmatic commentator on human foibles. But Twain also democratizes human compassion toward animals as a progressive outgrowth of a mythological American frontier, fashioning the horse and other western inhabitants as empathetic characters while casting Old World traditions as artificial and inhumane. Twain’s ultimate indictment of Spanish bullfighting at the novella’s end thus casts animal cruelty as a hierarchical ritual of social conformity while recasting the American frontier as a foundational myth in the animal welfare movement.","PeriodicalId":41060,"journal":{"name":"Mark Twain Annual","volume":"17 1","pages":"140 - 158"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2000,"publicationDate":"2019-10-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Mark Twain Annual","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.5325/marktwaij.17.1.0140","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"LITERATURE, AMERICAN","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Abstract:The animals in A Horse’s Tail populate a singular form of sentimental narrative that ties together animal welfare and the American frontier as a larger story of American national identity. Shelley Fisher Fishkin has called attention to Twain’s fascination with animal and human emotions and Twain’s associated reversal of human intelligence and animal ignorance in his writing. A Horse’s Tale follows this dynamic by offering its horse narrator as a pragmatic commentator on human foibles. But Twain also democratizes human compassion toward animals as a progressive outgrowth of a mythological American frontier, fashioning the horse and other western inhabitants as empathetic characters while casting Old World traditions as artificial and inhumane. Twain’s ultimate indictment of Spanish bullfighting at the novella’s end thus casts animal cruelty as a hierarchical ritual of social conformity while recasting the American frontier as a foundational myth in the animal welfare movement.
期刊介绍:
The Mark Twain Annual publishes articles related to Mark Twain and those who surrounded him and serves as an outlet for new scholarship as well as new pedagogical approaches. It is the official publication of the Mark Twain Circle of America, an international association of people interested in the life and work of Mark Twain. The Circle encourages interest in Mark Twain and fosters the formal presentation of ideas about the author and his work, as well as the informal exchange of information among its members.